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Sherlock Holmes the Missing Years: The Adventures of the Great Detective in India and... by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Features
Hardcover:
288 pages
; Dimensions (in inches): 1.04 x 9.57 x 6.38
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; (March 2001)
ISBN:
158234132X
From Publishers Weekly
"I travelled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhasa and spending some days with the head Lama." So says Holmes to Watson in Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Empty House," which resurrected the detective after his apparent death at the hands of Moriarity at Reichenbach Falls. Ever since, Holmes enthusiasts have speculated as to what, exactly, the detective did in Tibet; this entertaining novel offers one scenario. In Norbu's vision, Holmes travels east to escape homicidal attacks by Moriarity's henchman. In India, he hooks up with Norbu's Watson figure (and narrator), Huree Chunder Mookherjee, a Bengali scholar and spy assigned to accompany Holmes, disguised as the Norwegian explorer Sigerson, to Tibet. The narrative features numerous neoclassic (Norbu is a Baker Street Irregular so perforce a Holmes expert) deductions by Holmes as he and Mookherjee travel to Lhasa, meet the young Dalai Lama and take on a Chinese-backed evil magician whose secret identity will surprise few. Norbu, who's a prominent supporter of today's Dalai Lama, uses the novel as a platform to castigate the current occupation of Tibet by China, but that political message is woven artfully into the story line, as are breathtaking descriptions of Indian and Tibetan life and landscape in 1891. The plot strains toward the end, resorting to bombast and magical fireworks, but, overall, this is an unusual and worthy addition to Holmesiana. (Jan. ) Forecast: The publisher promises national advertising and online promotion for this title. That's good, because this book has break-out potential via numerous markets: the mystery crowd, of course, but also general fiction readers and, not incidentally, the ever-growing mass of those interested in Buddhist-oriented literature.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
A new Sherlock Holmes mystery worthy of the master Sir Conan Doyle himself.
In 1891, a horrified public learned that Sherlock Holmes-in a last deadly struggle with the archcriminal Professor Moriarty-had perished at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. Two years later, popular demand made Sir Conan Doyle resurrect the great detective. Holmes informed a stunned Dr. Watson, "I traveled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Llasa."
Nothing has been known of those missing years until Jamyang Norbu's discovery of the Mandala, a carefully wrapped package in a rusting tin box. When opened, the package reveals a Bengali scholar's own account of his travels with Holmes. The Mandala holds the key to a mystery and tells the story of Holmes in a landscape so fascinating, a game so intriguing, that it is impossible to resist. An exciting, often richly humorous detective story, Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years also evokes the romance of Kipling's India. Jamyang Norbu has written a mystical, playful, and witty page-turner.
Reader Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A Winning Effort Stumbles at the End, October 10, 2001
Reviewer:
T. Ross (rosseroo@erols.com)
from Washington, DC
Most people who know a little about Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series know that at one point Doyle got sick of the detective series and killed off his star character, only to be forced into "resurrecting" him after a two year absence. Here, in one of the many, many, many, modern takes on the Holmes series, eminent Tibetan author Norbu details Holmes adventures incognito in India and Tibet during those two years. The role of Dr. Watson (both as bumbling sidekick and chronicler) is here assumed by Hurree Chandar Mookerjee, a Bengali spy lifted from yet another work of fiction, Rudyard Kipling's "Kim" (and just to be totally clear, he was based on a real Indian who spied for the British!). The adventures initially consist of a plot by the henchmen of Holmes' now-dead nemesis, Moriarity, to avenge their leader's death. Holmes ends up hiding out and getting the notion to make a pilgrimage to Lhasa to meet the Dalai LamaÔø‡something strictly forbidden for Westerners. This leads to the second main adventure, which involves helping the young 13th Dalai Lama (a man critical to real-life modern Tibetan history) evade the deadly machinations of the powerful Manchu Imperial agents in Lhasa. Norbu should first and foremost be commended for being able to almost perfectly capture the correct period speech for each character (there is a lengthy glossary at the back for all the Hinustani phrases and period slang). I say" almost" because I found Hurree's speech to be just a little too over the top, even for the type of educated servant of the Empire he isÔø‡it's just a shade too forced at times. Norbu has also captured the period perfectly and manages to seamlessly insert his own agenda by portraying early Chinese imperialism in Tibet. The portrayal of Holmes is excellent (enthusiastic, abrasive, arrogant, drug abuser) up to a point. That point is the final quarter of the book which starts melding the Holmesian world of deduction and reason with the Tibetan world of mysticism and occult powers. Up until then, I had been having great fun, but once people started throwing around hellfire and erecting mental shields and whatnot, I lost faith and interest in the whole exercise. It's not that I'm prejudiced against such things (I've played sword and sorcery role-playing games for 15 years), I just don't think they belong in the hyper-deductive world of Sherlock Holmes. It's well known that Conan Doyle had a strong belief in the occult and was fascinated with the spirit world, but to mix that in with Holmes just rubs me wrong.
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